A patient's quality of life is adversely affected by pain. Further, this quality of life is associated with loss of work productivity, which impacts both the patient and its employer adversely.
Thus, for example, moderate to severe pain and physical disability that are symptoms of osteoarthritis (OA) may profoundly affect many aspects of patients' quality of life including the activities of daily living (ADLs). Moreover, in other pain conditions such as, low back pain (LBP), the total cost in loss of productivity in the U.S. exceeds $100 billion/year. Among active U.S. workers, pain conditions such as LBP, cost employers approximately $61.2 billion/year in lost productive time.
Generally, pain is treated with NSAIDs or combination opioids to provide effective analgesia in patients with moderate to severe chronic osteoarthritis (OA) pain when less potent treatments are not effective or tolerable, or are contraindicated. Currently, combination opioids are available only in immediate-release formulations. These combinations however may not adequately address several quality of life concerns. Therefore, improvement in quality of life is desirable through new formulations, which also reduce loss of productivity, thereby positively impacting both the patient and its employers.